# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
TRy THis SMart and SWaggy song about CReating consonant BLends, digraphs and TRigraphs!

Keep Moving With GoNoodle

GoNoodle is free for teachers, parents, and kids! Get moving with 300+ dance videos, mindfulness activities, and more engaging videos for kids!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TRy THis SMart and SWaggy song about CReating consonant BLends, digraphs and TRigraphs! GoNoodle is free for teachers, parents, and kids! Get moving with 300+ dance videos, mindfulness activities, and more engaging videos for kids!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Phoneme awareness is the ability to identify phonemes, the vocal gestures from which words are constructed, when they are found in their natural context-spoken words. Children need phoneme awareness to learn to read because letters represent phonemes in words. A phoneme is the meaning of a letter or digraph, the "mouth move" signaled by the letter. The spelling of a word-its letter sequence-is a map of the pronunciation-its phoneme sequence. To learn to read words, we have to understand this mapping. Thus, learning to read begins by "making friends with phonemes"-becoming comfortable and familiar with them. Informally, children develop this familiarity in conversations about books read aloud, especially alphabet books and books of nursery rhymes. Guiding and encouraging children's attempts to invent spelling also helps children make friends with phonemes.

Children can also be taught to make friends with phonemes in explicit lessons. When we examine research-based programs for teaching phoneme identities, we find three features in effective programs:
a) A focus on a basic set of individual phonemes, one at a time.
b) Activities designed to make each phoneme memorable.
c) Practice finding each phoneme in spoken words.

Research demonstrates that getting familiar with phonemes helps children make breakthroughs in learning to decode.

Focus on individual phonemes. Children need to get a feel for each phoneme they will use in reading and spelling. Just as we do not expect children to learn to recognize all the letters at once, neither should we expect children to learn all the phonemes at once. Instead, we spend time with each phoneme they will need to read and spell words. Where to start? Continuants phonemes such as /f/, /m/, and /s/ are easy to stretch and pronounce by themselves. Unvoiced consonants like /t/ and /p/ can come soon after. We need vowels right away, because we can't put together any word without a vowel. Long vowels are easier to identify than short vowels. However, short vowels should come early because they are typically the first to be introduced in reading lessons since they have simple one-letter spellings. Children do not need to be taught every phoneme. As they get used to identifying a limited set of phonemes, they will learn how to identify others.

Select a good basic set of perhaps a dozen phonemes, and introduce the phonemes one at a time, setting aside a few days for each one. A good introductory strategy is to use meaningful names, gestures, pictures, and letters. Meaningful names provide a familiar image of a sound similar to the sound of the phoneme in the world; for example, /z/ sounds like a buzzing bee. Children readily associate /a/ (short a) with a crying baby. (Click here for a list of ideas for meaningful names). Phoneme gestures are hand motions children can make to remember phonemes; for example, a good gesture for /p/ is flicking open the fingers on both hands like popcorn popping. Phoneme gestures require no special materials-they are always at hand, and children enjoy participating in lessons with hand motions. (Click here for a list of ideas for phoneme gestures.) Phoneme pictures capture an image of the phoneme's meaningful name. (Click here for phoneme pictures for the five short vowels.) Display the principal letter or digraph for each phoneme, and teach children to recognize the letters by guided printing practice. (Click here for instructions for teaching letter recognition.)

Make the phoneme memorable. After children have been introduced to a phoneme, they need to stretch it, examine it, and make meaningful connections to other things they know about. To get across the idea that a phoneme is the same "mouth move" across many different words, have children learn alliterative "tongue ticklers," e.g., "Many mice make music." Here are three guidelines for good tongue ticklers:

1. Make sure most words begin with your phoneme (i.e., use alliteration). Beginnings are most noticeable. In most cases, don't use words with the phoneme in the middle or end of the words ( x is the exception).

2. For tongue ticklers young children can remember, 4 or 5 phonemes is plenty. If they are too long, they are hard to remember.

3. It doesn't matter how phonemes are spelled in the tongue tickler as long as the phoneme is consistent. These are oral language activities, and children will not see the spellings.

GOOD: Cats and kittens cry for Christmas. (The main words all have the phoneme /k/.) BAD: Annie ate an apple in the alley. (
Ate has the wrong phoneme for learning about /a/.)

Click here for an excellent collection of tongue ticklers for practicing phoneme awareness.

Once children learn a tongue tickler, have them have them practice stretching the sounds, e.g., "Nnnnnobody was nnnnnice to Nnnnnancy's nnnnneighbor Nnnnnick." Have them make the phoneme gesture as they stretch the phoneme, in this case, "driving a jet ski." Another good way to practice is splitting the target phoneme from the rest of the words, e.g., "N-obody was n-ice to N-ancy's n-neighbor N-ick." This is important with stop phonemes like /t/: "T-om t-ricked T-im and t-ook his t-rain off the t-rack." Children can compose their own tongue ticklers and write them with invented spelling. An excellent resource is a good alphabet book. Look for alphabet books that have multiple examples of familiar words to illustrate each letter, such as Dr. Seuss's ABC, with wonderful alliterations like "Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got sick, sick, sick."

Ask children to be scientists and figure out how they are making the sound with their mouths. They will need time to experiment and discover what their mouths are doing as they practice producing each phoneme. For example, how do we make /m/? When children learn that they must press their lips together and hum, they zero in on the key concept for deciding whether /m/ is found in summer or winter. As they say the words slowly, they will press their lips together and hum when they say summer, but not when they say winter.

In the long run, children need to learn letters and digraphs as symbols for phonemes. After students learn to print the most common letter for the target phoneme, have them invent spellings for words with this letter. To invent a spelling, you must stretch out the word, feel what your mouth is doing, and record letters for the mouth moves. Daily writing opportunities with invented spelling allow children to identify phonemes and practice using correspondences they are learning.

Find the phoneme in word contexts. Phoneme awareness means recognizing phonemes in their natural environment, spoken words. Children have not learned the phoneme until they can spot it in words. For early practice, help them recognize the target phoneme at the beginning of words. For this, you might have them pick out illustrations of words beginning with the phoneme from a bulletin board. Later have them search for the phoneme in the middle or end of a word. Have them choose between words related in meaning to practice the switch from meaning to sound. For example, you might ask them to listen for the sound /s/, the "flat tire sound" in words related in meaning:

Only after children recognize phonemes in words should we ask them to think of words that feature the target phoneme. For example, until they can readily find the phoneme in words, they can't search magazines for illustrations that begin with the phoneme. DaisyQuest and Daisy's Castle are excellent computer games that use state-of-the-art animation and synthesized speech to help children find phonemes in word contexts. (Click here for these and other resources for teaching phoneme awareness).

Blending and segmentation work with the target phoneme is very helpful in recognizing the phoneme in word contexts. Remember in blending and segmentation to work with only one phoneme at a time. Most blending and segmentation programs presume that children can work with assorted phonemes, most of which they haven't learned to identify. Blending and segmentation work usually requires letters to represent the phonemes, because otherwise children have too many things to think about at once. Oddly, research suggests it is easier to blend phonemes to the ends of words. For example, it is easier to blend roo-m, crea-m, and sli-me than to blend

Creative teachers will think of many other ways to help children make friends with phonemes. Effective lessons and activities will focus on particular phonemes, make these phonemes familiar to children, and then provide practice finding the phonemes in word contexts.

Return to the Reading Genie homepage.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to teach phoneme awareness - The Reading Genie

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phoneme awareness is the ability to identify phonemes, the vocal gestures from which words are constructed, when they are found in their natural context-spoken words. Children need phoneme awareness to learn to read because letters represent phonemes in words. A phoneme is the meaning of a letter or digraph, the "mouth move" signaled by the letter.

# data[].attributes.headline
Supporting Phonemic Awareness development in the classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Supporting Phonemic Awareness development in the classroom

# data[].attributes.body
The research building block for teaching children

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonemic & Phonological Awareness Games & Activities | Lakeshore®

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids build phonemic & phonological awareness-with fun games, puzzles & hands-on language activities! Teach letter sounds, rhyming, sound switching & more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Books shelved as phonemic-awareness: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes, Four Famished Foxes and Fosdyke by Pam...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Defined as the ability to distinguish and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of speech sound that can carry a meaning

A critical skill that all readers must develop

Students should be assessed early (kindergarten) for the ability

Must be taught explicitly to dyslexics, though this is not required for more efficient readers

Is taught through activities in sound identification, sound substitution, rhyming, word blending and word segmentation

Often falsely equated with skills in phonics

The 'phonological deficit hypothesis' is considered the dominant explanation for dyslexia and directly implicates awareness of phonemes

Definitions

Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of speech sound that can carry a meaning. In English there are 44 of these sounds. The awareness can be demonstrated in the ability to isolate, blend and otherwise manipulate the essential sounds of language-for example by recognizing a set of words all beginning with the /h/ sound or isolating a sound at the beginning, middle or end of word. It does not require spelling or even the use of letters.

"Phonological awareness is the ability to listen inside a word"
-Dyslexia researcher and author Jo Fitzpatrick

But isn't it just phonics?

No, phonics is about the relationship between letters and sounds whereas phonemic awareness is strictly about sounds, does not require a student to know the alphabet, or even be able to identify a single letter. For example asking a child which word results from taking the /m/ sound off the end of the word '

farm' would be a test of their phonemic awareness. Asking him or her to sound out the word by looking at the letters would be a test of phonics.

Why phonemic awareness matters:
The phonological deficit hypothesis

According to Julian Elliott and Elena Grigorenko in their 2014 book The Dyslexia Debate, the phonological deficit hypothesis has been the dominant cognitive explanation of dyslexia for over four decades. According to this hypothesis, "children with dyslexia are hindered by faulty representation of speech sounds, which leads to problems involving the precise processing of spoken words." (Chapter two, Explanations at the cognitive level.)

Assessing and improving the cognitive processing of spoken words should be an objective of every preschool, kindergarten and early grade school reading programs because phonemic awareness is a prerequisite to a suite of critical skills including letter sound decoding (phonics), rapid word identification (use of sight words) and fluency. Piles of academic research has found that explicitly teaching students the sounds of language is a potent instructional technique:

In a 2012 study of the relationship between phonemic awareness, rhyme awareness, short-term memory and children's reading skills, Melby and Lervag et al. found the phonemic awareness was the strongest predictor. The authors wrote of the "pivotal role of phonemic awareness as predictor of individual differences in reading development."

In 2000, the U.S National Reading Panel found that "teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective under a variety of teaching conditions with a variety of learners across a range of grade and age levels and that teaching phonemic awareness (PA) to children significantly improves their reading more than instruction that lacks any attention to PA."

G.R. Lyon found that "the best predictor of reading difficulty in kindergarten or first grade is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sound units" (Lyon, 1995, Toward a Definition of Dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.)

Renowned professor of the psychology of reading, Keith Stanovich has found that phonemic awareness is the most powerful predictor of success in learning to read, more highly related to reading than tests of general intelligence, reading readiness, and listening comprehension. (Stanovich, 1986, 1994)

In contrast, alternative approaches to teaching reading emphasize context, vocabulary and meaning, sometimes referred to as the whole language approach, now widely believed to be inferior to explicit phonemic and phonic instruction.

Vocabulary: Rhyme vs Rime

Rime: Derived from the Germanic rim, it means a sequence or series. More specifically it refers to a part of a word with a particular spelling pattern, beginning with a vowel sound and ending before the next vowel sound in the word. For example in the words , dog and fog the letters ' og' are the rimes. The initial letters of the word (h, d, f) are known as the 'onset'.

Rhyme: A correspondence of sounds between words. If two words contain similar sounds, usually at the beginning or end, then we say that they Rhyme. For example the words core, door and four all rhyme but do not contain the same rime.

In summary, words that rhyme don't always have the same rime. Got it?

Below are the specific skills that someone with phonemic awareness should be able to demonstrate. Skills are listed below by the approximate age they usually appear.

Word awareness (ages 2+)

Children have to become aware that speech is made up of discrete knowable words, mentally parsing them where one ends and the next begins. This occurs naturally but it is a surprisingly difficult learning task, one a toddler will not even recall mastering. Those studying a second language readily understand just how spoken words can stick together. Progress is when a garble of formerly mysterious sound is magically deciphered into a series of meaningful words. We just get used to the magic.

Rhyme and alliteration awareness (Ages 3+)

Awareness of rhyme may be revealed though their enjoyment of rhyming verses read to them from storybooks, playful use of rhymes in songs, or from being able to actually identify rhymes in speech or even text.
Syllable awareness (Ages 3-4)

Syllable awareness is an understanding that words are composed of smaller sound chunks. Children can demonstrate knowledge of syllables by clapping out words such as hip-o-pot-a-mus. If they clap the right number of times, they are aware of syllables. Syllables are not phonemes, but awareness of them indicates a knowledge that words are composed of discrete sounds which can later be isolated and manipulated.
Rhyme Generation (Ages 3-4)

Building on their abilities to identify rhymes and syllables allows young readers to demonstrate rhyme generation involving manipulation of both the onset and rime. (See side box for definitions).
Identifying phonemes (Ages 5+)

If a child can identify the first sound in the word cat or the last sound in the word bit, sat and wet, then they have demonstrated this skill. dog or identify a common phoneme in a group of words like
Blending and segmenting phonemes (Ages 5-6)

Blending is the ability to assemble a word from its onset and rime (/b/ + /ug/ = bug) or from its phonemes, such as the sounds /c/ /a/ /p/ blending to form the word cap. Segmenting is simply reversing the process by asking students to break the words ' bug' or 'cap' down into their syllables and sounds.
Isolating phonemes (Ages 5-7)

This skill involves isolating where in a word a specific sound resides. For example, in the word 'bug' where is the /g/ sound located-at the beginning, middle or end? The most difficulty and last kind of isolation to be learned is identifying phonemes in the middle of words. Remember that this exercise is done orally, not using letters on paper and is harder for young children than it sounds.
Deleting phonemes (Ages 6-7)

If we remove the last sound from the word ' cart', what word are we left with? If a child understands that the word ' car' is left over then they can delete phonemes.

Substituting phonemes (Ages 6-7)

This skill involves being able to replace one sound in a word with another and recognizing the new meaning. For example, if we replace the /m/ sound in the word stem with the /p/ sound, what new word do we have?

Assessment

How can you tell when a child is struggling with phonemic awareness? There are some very simple, informal methods that parents and teachers can use as well as formal diagnostic tests administered by professionals.

Read out loud: For children in kindergarten or the first grade, the easiest way to reveal problems with phoneme awareness is by having them read of a list of words out loud. Ideally the list should be made up of age appropriate words which have not previously been practiced, free of context clues and pictures. If their reading is slow and errors are frequent, it may indicate a phoneme awareness problem. It is harder for parents of an only child to know what constitutes 'slow' but parents with more than one child and all teachers quickly learn how typical students read.

Importantly, the errors made won't be random. Those with weak phonemic awareness skills will guess at words based on shape and similarity of letters, because they cannot sound it out. There will be letter (b for d) and word (saw for was) reversals, but more common will be odd guesses such as reading lunch for bunch, except for expect.

Rhyming games: Ask the child to identify or create rhymes-tasks which can be done orally. Asked to generate words that rhyme with truck, a child with dyslexia may reply car and bus rather than duck or luck. The inability to complete this seemingly easy task is a very reliable indicator of dyslexia.

Formal

There are several diagnostic tests for awareness of phonemes. Dynamic Indicators of Basis Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP-2), Test of Phonemic Awareness (TOPA), the Yopp Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation, Aimsweb Test of Early Literacy and others. For more information see our dyslexia testing page.

These test should be administered by a qualified psychologist or assessor trained to administer them.

Teaching strategies & helpful resources

Better reading programs explicitly teach phonemic awareness. How do they do it? By employing creative, fun, auditory and often visual exercises which help develop each of the skills above. Below are two helpful resources.

1) Essential Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness from the book 50 Reading Strategies for K-8 Learners from Sage Publications. A helpful book for teachers of kindergarten and elementary students.

2) The Reading Rockets website features helpful ideas for classroom activities.

Final Sounds

Every teacher of beginning readers should be aware of the importance of phonemic awareness, have their students assessed for it and be able to provide interventions for those students lagging in development. By fostering this ability during the critical window of early language development, teachers can make a lifelong difference for their students.

Back to the top of Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Defined as the ability to distinguish and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of speech sound that can carry a meaning A critical skill that all readers must develop Students should be assessed early (kindergarten) for the ability Must be taught explicitly to dyslexics, though this is not required for more

# data[].attributes.headline
PA with students with Learning Disabilities 

# data[].attributes.subject
PA with students with Learning Disabilities 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Learning Disabilities Association of America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Reading is the single most important educational skill your students will learn. Understanding the organization and meaning of text and instruction in both phonics and literature is essential to helping young children read. By understanding the prerequisite skills for reading, teachers can build a solid foundation for their students to learn and succeed in school. Here are some ways to create appreciation of the written word, develop awareness of printed language, teach the alphabet, develop phonological and phonemic awareness, teach the relation of sounds and letters, teach children how to sound out words and to spell words, and help children develop fluent, reflective reading.
Create Appreciation of the Written Word

Share stories with children and invite them to explore a story's magic.

Share informational texts and invite children to wonder about the new ideas presented.

Take every opportunity to point out the ways in which reading is essential to the communications of everyday life (e.g., on labels, instructions, and signs).

Develop Awareness of Printed Language and the Writing System

Make sure students know how books are organized. They should be taught the basics about books-that they are read from left to right and top to bottom, that print may be accompanied by pictures or graphics, that the pages are numbered, and that the purpose of reading is to gain meaning from the text and understand ideas that words convey.

Read to children from books with easy-to-read large print. Use stories that have predictable words in the text.

Use "big books" to help children notice and learn to recognize words that occur frequently, such as a, the, is, was, and you.

Label objects in your classroom.

Teach the Alphabet

A strong predictor of the ease with which a child learns to read is his or her familiarity with letters of the alphabet. This familiarity is a critical building block for learning to read.

It is important to go beyond knowing the names of letters. Students must also develop a sense of the purpose of letters.

Help them notice the letters in the print that surrounds them and that you share with them every day.

Engage the students in activities that will help them learn to recognize letters visually.

Help students learn to form the letters and encourage them to embellish their work with their names and with other first attempts at writing.

Develop the Students' Phonological Awareness

In listening and speaking, we pay attention to the meaning of language rather than to its sound. To learn to read, however, students must be taught to attend to the sounds, or phonology, of language. This is necessary for them to understand how speech is represented by print. Children with learning disabilities need special help in learning to develop such phonological awareness.

Model and demonstrate how to break short sentences into individual words. For example, use the sentence "Frogs eat bugs," and demonstrate with chips, cards, or other manipulatives how the sentence is made up of three words and how the order of the words matters. Using manipulatives to make sentences, play with each word and put it in order.

Develop students' awareness of the sounds of individual words by asking them to clap out syllables and to listen for and generate rhymes.

Once children are comfortable in playing games with words, syllables, and rhymes, move onto phonemic awareness.

Develop Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness refers to an understanding that words and syllables are comprised of a sequence of elementary speech sounds. This understanding is essential to learning to read an alphabetic language. The majority of children with reading disabilities fail to grasp this idea.

In teaching phonemic awareness, the focus of all activities should be on the sounds of words, not on letters or spellings.

Use strategies that make phonemes prominent in children's attention and perception. For example, model specific sounds, such as /s/ in the word sat, and ask children to produce each sound in isolation and in many different words until they are comfortable with the sound and understand its nature.

Begin with simple words and simple challenges, e.g., listen for initial /s/ in sat, sit, sip, and sad . . . or for long /e/ in me, see, bee . . . .

Teach students to blend phonemes into words. Begin by identifying just one phoneme, e.g., /m/-ilk, /s/-at, working gradually toward blending all the phonemes in words, e.g., /s/-/a/-/t/.

Teach students to identify the separate phonemes within words, e.g., what is the first sound of soup? What is the last sound of kiss? Beginning phonemes are easier to identify than final phonemes.

Once students are comfortable listening for individual phonemes, teach them to break up words, into component sounds, e.g., /m/-/oo/-/s/= "moose".

Create a sequence of segmenting and blending activities to help students develop an understanding of the relationship between sounds in words.

Provide children with more support when first teaching a task. For example, model a sound or strategy for making the sound, and have the children use the strategy to produce the sound. Model and practice several examples. Prompt the children to use the strategy during guided practice, and gradually add more examples. As the students master these skills, provide less teacher-directed instruction and more practice and challenge.

Make teaching phonological awareness a top priority. Opportunities to engage in phonological awareness activities should be plentiful, frequent, brief, and fun.

Phonemic awareness is essential for learning to read, but it is not enough by itself. It must be coupled with instruction and practice in learning the relationship between letters and sounds.

Teach the Relation of Sounds and Letters

Students should learn the letters of the alphabet and discriminate each letter from the other, because each stands for one or more of the sounds that occur in spoken words.

When presenting each letter, model its corresponding sound and have children produce the sound themselves. For children with learning disabilities, the teaching activities must be explicit and unambiguous.

At first, teach and work with only a few letter-sound correspondences that have high utility in many words (e.g., /m/ in man, mad, him, and ham). Postpone teaching less frequently occurring letters until students have a firm understanding of how left-to-right spellings represent first-to-last sounds (alphabetic understanding).

Teach Children How to Sound Out Words

After students have mastered a few letter-sound correspondences, teach them to decode words or sound them out. Begin with small, familiar words. Teach the children to sound out the letters, left to right, and blend them together, searching for the word in memory.

Model sounding out the word, blending the sounds together and saying the word. The ability to sound out new words allows children to identify and learn new words on their own.

Give children stories containing words that reflect the letter-sound patterns that have been taught, and encourage them to sound out words whenever they are uncertain.

Help children learn spelling conventions, such as the use of final /e/ to mark long vowels, by comparing and contrasting lots of examples.

Teach Children to Spell Words

Teach children to spell words by sounding their letters one by one. Model the sounding and spelling process for children as they spell.

Begin with short words children can sound out, because these words follow regular spelling conventions, e.g., cap, bat, and sit instead of cape, bait or sight.

Begin with simple words that do not contain consonant blends, e.g., ham and pan instead of slam and plan.

Encourage students to use spelling knowledge and strategies regularly in their own writing.

Introduce spelling conventions systematically. Begin with words that exemplify the most frequent and basic conventions, and provide support and practice to help students generalize from these words to others. The goal is to help them see the spelling conventions in the words.

Use words in which letter-sound correspondences represent their most common sounds (e.g., get instead of gem).

Develop a sequence and schedule of opportunities that allow children to apply and develop facility with sounds and words at their own pace. Specify what skills to assess and when to assess them so that you will know when to move on. Take into account each student's background knowledge and pace in moving from sounding out to blending words to reading connected text.

Help Children Develop Fluent, Reflective Reading
ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education

Help children learn to read fluently by requiring them to read new stories and reread old stories every day.

Help children extend their experience with the words, language, and ideas in books by interactively reading harder texts with them and to them every day.

Relate information in books to other events of interest to children, such as holidays, pets, siblings, and games. Engage children in discussion of the topics.

In both stories and informational texts, encourage wondering. For example, "I wonder what Pooh will do now?" "How do you think the father feels ?" or "I wonder what frogs do in the winter? Do you think that's a problem? Why?"

Model comprehension strategies and provide students with guided assistance.

Point out how titles and headings tell what a book is about.

Help students identify the main ideas presented in the text, as well as the supporting detail. Graphics help to reveal main ideas, and the relationship between text and graphics helps students understand what they are reading.

Point out unfamiliar words and explore their meaning. Revisit these words frequently and encourage students to use them in their own conversations.

Show children how to analyze contextual clues to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Research shows that most vocabulary growth comes from learning new words in reading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading is the single most important educational skill your students will learn. Understanding the organization and meaning of text and instruction in both phonics and literature is essential to helping young children read. By understanding the prerequisite skills for reading, teachers can build a solid foundation for their students to learn and succeed in school....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Page 9: Considerations for English Language Learners

Research findings indicate that providing reading instruction across the five components is equally effective for students who are English Language Learners (ELL). Findings also recommend teaching ELL students with practices that mirror those discussed in the high-quality instruction section of this module (e.g., explicit instruction, opportunities for practice, small-group instruction). Additionally, compilations of research studies indicate that considerations and accommodations should also be made to positively increase ELL students' English language proficiency. Finally, understanding the influence that culture has on education is critical.

Leonard Baca, PhD
Director, BUENO Center
for Multicultural Education
University of Colorado, Boulder

The following section will discuss instructional considerations for ELL students within each of the five core reading components.

Phonics and Word Study

A number of important considerations for teaching phonics and word study skills to ELL students should be kept in mind. ELL students must learn print awareness just as students whose primary language is English must learn it. This process could be particularly difficult for students whose primary language does not include a written variant, such as in the case of some Native American languages. Students speaking these languages may need explicit instruction about the correspondence between the spoken and written word.

ELL experts have long argued that instruction improves when teachers have knowledge about students' linguistic and cultural backgrounds. For instance, they should be aware that vowel sounds in Spanish and English have the same letter names but different sounds (e.g., the English letter "i" sounds like a long "e" in Spanish). This creates a problem for Spanish-speaking ELL students because the sound for "i" in English does not remain constant. For all ELL students, teachers need to keep in mind that English vowel sounds will likely be more problematic than most consonant sounds.

Fluency

Fluency practice is especially important for ELL students. One way for students to practice fluency is to read simultaneously with tape-assisted reading (for more information, see the Using Technology link). Doing so can help students to become familiar with appropriate reading rates and reading expression. Intonation patterns may differ in ELL students' primary languages, so instruction that uses technology can offer fluent models for students to imitate.

Vocabulary

Teachers should be aware that when ELL students read or hear English, it is not the reading or hearing of the words that causes the lack of understanding but, rather, the inability to recognize the meaning behind the words. For instance, ELL students may have difficulty comprehending certain idiomatic expressions (e.g., "raining cats and dogs," "out of this world," "cute as a button").

Reading Comprehension

Although there are a number of ways to improve reading comprehension skills for ELL students, here are some key points to consider: First, teachers should help to build the connection between text and meaning by applying students' culture and life experiences to the text. This includes choosing texts that allow the students to access their prior knowledge, linguistic abilities, and experiences. When ELL students are familiar with the content, they are more likely to comprehend text. Teachers can also emphasize that connection between text and meaning by conducting prereading activities (e.g., viewing pictures from the story, discussing previously read stories) to help students understand the concepts in the text. Stories that have repetition or rhyme also help readers decode and infuse inflection, thereby increasing reading comprehension. Second, teachers should continually ask students a variety of questions about the text, to assess whether students comprehend more than just facts in their reading. Students with good reading comprehension skills will be able to answer questions beyond simple factual recall.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
IRIS | Page 9: Considerations for English Language Learners

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Research findings indicate that providing reading instruction across the five components is equally effective for students who are English Language Learners (ELL). Findings also recommend teaching ELL students with practices that mirror those discussed in the high-quality instruction section of this module (e.g., explicit instruction, opportunities for practice, small-group instruction).

# data[].attributes.headline
English Language Learners and their Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.subject
English Language Learners and their Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
English Language Learners: Culture, Equity and Language

# data[].attributes.headline
Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation

# data[].attributes.subject
Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yopp-Singer test of phoneme segmentation with a 5 year old girl

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phoneme Fingers: A phonological awareness activity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rhyme: A phonological awareness activity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Change My Word: A phonological awareness activity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Many kindergartners will pick up the foundational skills of reading relatively easily, but some will struggle. Here's what the research says about how to support them.

Astrakan Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Ms. Brown is a kindergarten teacher sitting with her new class on the first day of school. One of her main tasks this year will be teaching this group foundational literacy skills, including rhyming, sound-letter correspondences, blending (reading), and segmenting (spelling). Ms. Brown has taught for long enough to know that though they may look like blank slates ready to learn to read, her students are not all starting from the same place.

Some of these students are already readers. The others aren't-we call them emergent readers. The emergent readers are not all alike: Some will pick up the foundational skills relatively easily, while others will, despite exposure, have difficulty learning to read. The trick is teasing these two groups apart in order to differentiate appropriately for them.

How will Ms. Brown tell the difference between her typically developing emergent readers and her struggling emergent readers?

distinguishing and generating rhymes,

manipulating the sounds of words,

retaining new sound-letter correspondences,

gripping their pencil,

identifying letters, and

writing letters.

Over the coming weeks, she'll be working on the foundational skills with all of her students. While the typically developing emergent readers will pick them up, the struggling emergent readers will continue to have difficulty with:

In the past, it was commonly believed that these struggling students just needed more time to catch on. But current research shows that these students don't just need time-they need rigorous instruction in the foundational skills of reading to make strides in catching up to their grade-level peers.

Research-Backed Ways to Support Struggling Emergent Readers

With the research linked to in this article, a teacher can craft a program to support struggling emergent readers, one that includes intensive systematic instruction in phonological awareness, sound-symbol correspondence, blending and segmenting, handwriting instruction, and sight words. In addition, knowing best practices to intensify instruction and track data on instruction will enable teachers to better tailor instruction to those readers who may be struggling.

Ms. Brown's class may not be starting on a level playing field, but because she's aware of the ways to support those readers who need more support, they can end on one.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
8 Research-Backed Ways to Aid Struggling Emergent Readers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many kindergartners will pick up the foundational skills of reading relatively easily, but some will struggle. Here's what the research says about how to support them. Astrakan Images / Alamy Stock Photo Ms. Brown is a kindergarten teacher sitting with her new class on the first day of school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
August, D., Hakuta, K. (1997). Improving schooling for language-minority children: A research agenda. Washington, DC: National Research Council.

Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. The Partnership for Reading: National Institute for Literacy; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; and U.S. Department of Education.

Clay, M. (1993). Reading Recovery in English and other languages. Keynote address presented at the West Coast Literacy Conference, Palm Springs, CA.

Collier,V. & Thomas, W. (1992). A synthesis of studies examining long-term language minority student data on academic achievement. Bilingual Research Journal, 16(1-2), 187-212.

Cummins, J. (1989). Empowering minority students. Sacramento, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Cummins, J. (1992). Language proficiency, bilingualism, and academic achievement. In P. A. Richard-Amato and M. A. Snow (Eds.), The multicultural classroom: Readings for content-area teachers. White Plains: Longman.

Escamilla, K. (1987). The relationship of native language reading achievement and oral English proficiency to future achievement in reading English as a second language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Univer-sity of California, Los Angeles.

Hiebert, E. H., Pearson, P.D., Taylor, B.M., Richardson, V., Paris, S.G. (1998). Every child a reader: Applying reading research to the classroom. Center for the Improvement of Earl Reading Achievement. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan School of Education.

International Reading Association. (2001). Summary of the National Reading Panel Report, "Teaching Children to Read." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Reading Association, Washington, DC, July 2001.

Moats, L.C. (1999). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading should know and be able to do. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers.

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education (2002). Survey of the states' limited English proficient students and available educational programs and services, 1999-2001. Washington, DC: NCBE.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000a). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000b). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups (NIH Publication No. 00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

National Reading Panel (2001). "Frequently asked questions." [Online]. Available: http:// www.nationalreadingpanel.org/faq/faq.htm

New York State Education Department, Office of Bilingual Education. (2000). The teaching of language arts to limited English proficient/English language learners: A resource guide for all teachers. Albany, NY: Author.

Peregoy, S. F. & Boyle, O. F. (2000). English learners reading English: What we know, what we need to know. Theory into practice, 39(4), 237-247.

Ramirez, J.D. (2001). Bilingualism and literacy: Problem or opportunity? A synthesis of reading research on bilingual students. A Research Symposium on High Standards in Reading for Students in Diverse Language Groups: Research, Policy, and Practice. Washington, D.C.: Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs, U.S. Department of Education.

Rodriguez, A. (1988). Research in reading and writing in bilingual education and English as a second language. In A. Ambert (Ed.), Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language. New York: Garland Pub.

Snow, C., Burns, S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

U.S. Congress, No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110), 2001.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find out how teachers can play to the strengths and shore up the weaknesses of English Language Learners in each of the Reading First content areas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Get kids ready for reading! Phonemic awareness is the focus of these lesson plans and strategies, practice pages, and phonemic-awareness worksheets that teach phonemes, segmenting, and blending sounds to decode words and build fluency. Activities also teach letter sounds, letter writing, word families, and a variety of phonics and literacy skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get kids ready for reading! Phonemic awareness is the focus of these lesson plans and strategies, practice pages, and phonemic-awareness worksheets that teach phonemes, segmenting, and blending sounds to decode words and build fluency. Activities also teach letter sounds, letter writing, word families, and a variety of phonics and literacy skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonological Awareness Lessons | Reading A-Z

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Award-winning reading solution with thousands of leveled readers, lesson plans, worksheets and assessments to teach guided reading, reading proficiency and comprehension to K-5 students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Activities for Your First Grader

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
That’s a complicated sounding term, but it’s meaning is simple: the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in spoken language. Phonological awareness is really a group of skills that include a child’s ability to:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introduction to Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.body
Has some free downloads once you create an account

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A love of reading starts with a solid foundation A love of reading starts with a solid foundation The Heggerty Way Bridge to Reading Our...

# data[].attributes.headline
Top 10 Resources on Phonological & Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.subject
Top 10 Resources on Phonological & Phonemic Awareness